I do own Warhammer 40000 nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
The Anchor of Vaul
745.M32
"DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR !"
With the ancient war-cry on his lips, Mahlone plunged through a squad of Guardsmen in stained fatigues. His sword cut through their flak armor like paper while his relic laspistol punched through the armor of the closest Heir of Sanguinius, sending the warrior crashing through the ground with a fist-sized hole in his chest.
Ygdal fought alongside him, tearing through the loyalist Guardsmen with his power sword and his bolt pistol. So did Marcus the Riven, though the mortal champion of Chaos was likely unique in the entire battle of the Anchor in that he fought bare-handed, as he always had so long as Mahlone had known him. As always, he wore no armor but a simple robe of scarlet cloth, trusting in his reflexes, skills and the gifts of the Dark Gods to keep him unharmed – and so far, despite the calibre of the opposition they faced, it had been enough, though the Riven was careful not to engage the Heirs of Sanguinius. His hands were red with the blood of his victims as he plunged them into the chest of an Imperial, tearing out his heart before kicking another in the neck, breaking his spine in a single blow, all while twisting his own torso out of the way of their panicked las-fire.
Behind the pack's three melee fighters, a squad of twelve troopers from Androkas-Prime led by Lieutenant Lysandre Ariethi unleashed volleys of las-fire, their weapons set at maximum power to ensure every hit was a kill.
All around them, the endless corridors of the Anchor of Vaul echoed with the sounds of battle, as packs of Forsaken Sons fought the Imperial and Eldar forces who had made it this far into the megastructure. Vox-communication beyond line of sight range was impossible : the unimaginable energies coursing through the Anchor fouled the signals. And the closest to the singularity atop the Anchor one went, the tighter and more maze-like its insides became.
This, however, worked to the Forsaken Sons' advantage. Having managed to push through the hosts of Entropy and Delusion, the forces of Order were caught in a hundred ambushes. Survivors of both defeated armies had fled into the vast corridors of the Anchor, and the Nurglite and Etharic mutants seized the smallest opportunity to avenge their defeat.
The greatest threat to the allied but separated Eldar and Imperial armies, however, were the Forsaken Sons themselves. The Chaos Marines were all veterans of centuries of warfare, capable of fighting in small groups much more efficiently than either of the armies who had invaded the Anchor on their heels. At Arken's orders, the warband's packs had scattered through the higher levels of the Anchor, fighting to make the enemies pay in blood for every kilometer and slow their advance, buying with their lives the time the Awakened One needed to complete his great work. Across the continent-sized megastructure, handfuls of Forsaken Sons emerged from hiding, firing a few volleys and slaughtering a handful of troops before retreating – which was exactly what Mahlone's pack were doing here.
The Unbound Lord rammed his blade through the throat of an Heir of Sanguinius sergeant while kicking in the ribcage of an Imperial guardsman trying to flank him. The mortal flew backward, and the primed grenade he had been holding detonated in the middle of the rest of his squad. Six of the mortals died, but the rest charged him, despite being covered in the gory remains of their comrades.
Shouts of alarm and fury rose from the throats of hundreds of nearby Guardsmen, and the turrets of tanks swung in the direction of Mahlone's strike force. It was time to move, before the Imperials could react and crush them with overwhelming numbers. The Chosen of Arken barked an order, and the strike force turned back, vanishing into the corridor from which they had emerged, Mahlone leading them through the maze. The sounds of pursuit quickly faded – the Imperials couldn't break off from the main host, not without surrendering all hope of victory.
The Imperials had been driven beyond fear by the horrors of the Nurglite host, and would not break easily. There was nowhere to run for them in any case : the transports who had brought them aboard the Anchor had left the landing bay, and the Unbound Lord doubted they would return until the battle was over one way or another. The Imperial commanders were fully aware of the importance of this battle : they wouldn't allow their forces to withdraw. Mahlone had seen more than one Guardsman be executed by their own Commissars as they attempted to flee from the Unbound Lord and his allies, the stern voice of the red-sashed officers reminding their troops of the fate earned by cowardice.
The Forsaken Sons couldn't escape either, of course : the Hand of Ruin had been destroyed, along with most of their fleet. The Blade of Terror still endured – Morkoth had managed to get a brief message to Mahlone using the daemonship's infernal transmitter – and so did the Eidolon of Regret, but neither vessel would get close to the Anchor of Vaul, not when the allied fleet was so close. And while the Eidolon had unloaded a considerable quantity of ammunition crates and other supplies which were now scattered across the Anchor to support the Forsaken Sons' guerrilla efforts, bringing in a Teleportarium that worked inside the megastructure had been too much to ask.
Both sides having their back against the wall made for bloody fighting, corridor by corridor, immense room by impossible hall. The closer to the top of the megastructure you got, the more the Anchor made a mockery of conventional three-dimensional space, with corridors looping in on themselves or angles not adding up as they should. But Mahlone had found he instinctively understood the broken geometry of this place far better than their auspexes did.
Something in the way his brain had been altered on his homeworld, and further refined during his Ascension, made him uniquely suited to this particular battlefield. He could grasp the patterns beneath the apparent randomness, knowing where to go to exit a corridor and enter one of the alien rooms of unknowable purpose, or which path to take to emerge behind an enemy force despite always seeming to move away from them. He would have thanked Jikaerus, hadn't the old Fleshmaster got what he deserved at Ygdal's hands on Berrenos.
He paused. Something … something was wrong. It took him several seconds to realize that there was another echo of ceramite boots slamming into the floor. An Astartes was coming, running fast through the corridors.
"Ambush pattern," he commanded, gesturing for his pack to take cover behind a pair of square pillars that, while translucent, were full of some orange liquid that would block them from view.
It was unlikely that an Heir of Sanguinius would break off to move on his own, but maybe they had gotten lost -
Mahlone frowned as the source of the echoes came into view. "Asim ?"
"Ah, Mahlone," replied the Sorcerer of Blood, sounding pained and out of breath. His armor bore signs of battle, and he was missing his staff. "I am glad to have found you. Prepare yourself : by my best estimate, we have about … seventy seconds before one of the Grey Knights' commanders and his friends join us."
Behind him, Mahlone heard Ygdal curse violently. He was tempted to join him.
Janus and his twelve warriors came back to reality in front of a band of monsters armored in black and gold. Chaos Marines, Terminators and four Daemon Engines in the shape of monstrous beasts – Kala'stelal, he heard the name whispered by the Warp – stood guard in front of an archway hundreds of meters high, behind which extended a stairway made of shadow and light. None of them were without wound, their armor and flesh (where there was still a distinction between the two) damaged in the fight to reach this point. A veritable carpet of broken constructs surrounded them, with still more crawling over the corpses of their brethren to hurl themselves at the invaders.
The Chaos Marines were caught by surprise by the Grey Knights' teleportation, but these were veterans of the Long War, and they recovered quickly. A hail of gunfire enveloped the Grey Knights, while Janus' helm display filled with target lock. In the corner of his vision, the chrono-display glitched before stabilizing as the quantic-based mechanisms of his armor reasserted themselves, and Janus silently cursed. The trip through the Warp had felt instantaneous, yet they had lost almost half an hour nonetheless. It was a fraction of the time they would have spent walking through the Anchor to reach this point, but that the delay had existed at all spoke of the degree of attention Arken's mad plan had drawn from the Ruinous Powers.
Time was running out, the Supreme Grand Master could feel it in his soul. They couldn't afford to dither, to choose the tactics best suited to the destruction of the foe in front of them. Not when that foe was only a distraction, one more obstacle their true enemy had thrown in their way to slow them down. And so, with a telepathic pulse of command, Janus and his brothers charged the enemy, a direct and simple onslaught, with storm-bolters opening fire as they advanced, their speed increasing as they gained momentum.
There was no cover to hide behind for any of them, and the Forsaken Sons focused their fire, those not in Terminator armor covering behind the hulking forms of their brethren or the Kala'stelal. Yet even as they did so, the silvery constructs surged again, emerging from impossibly perfect holes in the walls that Janus was certain hadn't been there when they had arrived.
+Do not open fire on the constructs,+ ordered Janus. The Grey Knights were outnumbered four to one, and these were the elite of the Forsaken Sons : they would need all the help they could get, even if it was of xenos origin.
The Grey Knights slammed into the line of Chaos Terminators and Daemon Engines, and one of the Chaos Terminators moved to confront Janus. He was taller than the rest, and Janus could see how, like the others, his flesh had been fused to his armor, only to be then stretched out by the blessings of his dark patrons, his body reshaped to match his authority over them.
"I am Damarion," he began, "first of Arken's champions. You shall not -"
Janus struck before the heretic could finish, having no interest in the words of yet another traitor to the Golden Throne. The Titansword sneaked past the Terminator's guard and plunged into his throat, cutting right through the weaker armor of his gorget. With a twist of his wrist, he severed the head of the traitor, sending it flying. The armored corpse remained standing, locked in place by the final impulses from the brain of its master, and Janus pushed it aside with a telekine blast, sending it crashing into another traitor.
The Forsaken Sons roared in fury at the sight of their leader's death, redoubling their assault on the Grey Knights. Five more veterans of the Siege of Terra fell beneath Janus' blade, as did a Daemon Engine that looked like a cross between a lion and a scorpion, until finally, the path was clear.
+Hold here,+ he ordered his warriors. +Let none pass.+
+Fight well, Lord Janus,+ replied Percival, who had fought at Janus' side since he had finished his training in the halls of Titan, under the tutelage of Malcador's chosen.
+And you too, Percival. Know that I have always been proud to call you all my brothers.
Leaving his warriors behind to hold the archway, Janus rushed up the eldritch stairs. They bore his weight without issue, his armor's sensors failing to pick up the slightest vibration as his boots slammed into them, the kinetic energy swallowed by their arcane construction. The Supreme Grand Master moved as fast as his transhuman physiology and master-wrought suit of armor would allow him. He climbed steps meant for Aeldari limbs five at a time, his mind focused on what awaited.
Even as he did so, a part of him still took in the grandeur of his surroundings. He couldn't see the end of the space around him, his surroundings filled with a white radiance even his armor's auto-senses couldn't penetrate. The stairs were all he could see, stretching out in a spiral upward. As he climbed, he finally glimpsed his destination : a circular platform of the same black material as the outside of the Anchor of Vaul, seemingly floating in the air without anything supporting it.
A sphere of colorless light floated in front of the platform, shining far brighter than the white radiance suffusing this strange realm. It was difficult to gauge its dimensions against the backdrop of brilliant light, but Janus guessed it to be at least the size of an Imperator Titan. His armor's sensors, which had been struggling to cope with the readings they were getting since he had entered the Anchor, finally gave up, filling his display with alarms and errors that forced him to shut down his auto-senses and removed his helmet with his free hand, letting him look upon the scene with his own eyes.
Three figures already stood on the platform, clustered at its center. Two were clearly members of the Dark Mechanicum. One was little more than a grotesque mass of mecha-dendrites emerging from a hooded robe and ending in wicked, mutated weaponry. The other was a daemon-faced monstrosity whose soul-fire burned in Janus' second sight with the fell light of unholy knowledge. This, the Grey Knight immediately recognized, was an Arch-Heretek, a master of the lore the Emperor in His wisdom had forbidden all to delve into. It was bent over a waist-high pillar, eight tendrils of flesh and metal extending from its back and manipulating what Janus deduced must be the controls for the entire megastructure.
And then, of course, there was Arken, facing Janus with his back to the sphere of energy, a dark shape that seemed as if it would eclipse the white light. The Chaos Lord was as Janus remembered him from their brief confrontation in the Sea of Souls : whatever his sins, which were as numerous as they were unforgivable, the Awakened One clearly held no delusions about himself that could have warped his aspect on the psychic plane.
Janus didn't waste time on words. The moment his feet reached the platform, he hurled himself at the trio of heretics. The mass of mecha-dendrites, showing either remarkable courage or the true extant of its obedience protocols, threw itself in his path. With a few swipes of the Titansword, Janus reduced it to pieces bleeding blood and oil, having barely slowed down his stride.
Arken was already reacting, however, leaving the daemon-masked Arch-Heretek and running toward the sphere of energy at the opposite edge of the platform. Janus charged straight for the Chaos Lord, smashing the Arch-Heretek as he passed it by. This close to the singularity, he didn't dare to use his psychic powers, but his physical strength, augmented as it was by his master-wrought armor, was more than enough to pry it off the command pillar and send it flying off the edge of the platform. It fell down the depthless abyss, screeching in daemonic-tainted.
"Too late, Janus" said the Awakened One, smiling, and plunged his right arm into the sphere of energy.
The Anchor couldn't feel pain. It would have been nonsensical for its makers to give it the ability to do so. But it could sense the intrusion into its systems, the violation of its protocols. Most of all, it could sense the unravelling of its purpose.
It couldn't scream. It couldn't express what it felt, for to do so would have endangered its purpose even further. All it could do was try everything it could do to stop what was happening, to hold its purpose from being completely ruined. It rebuilt broken walls even as they collapsed from the terrible blow they had suffered, calculating which of the entities caught within could be released with the least damage to its purpose.
The dimensional barriers stabilized, even as an entire group of captives were released. However, the Anchor knew that another such blow, and the cage would fall apart completely.
Irithiel was leading his forces between cascades of flowing stone when he felt it. As an Autarch, his psychic abilities were stunted, barely enough of his potential allowed to manifest for him to interface with the more esoteric components of his equipment.
Yet even with these limitations, he was still an Eldar, with his soul far more attuned to the currents of the Aether than those of most humans. The discordance hit him like a hammer to the skull, and as he shook his head to clear his vision, he saw that many of his warriors were similarly affected, no few of them having fallen to the ground. Grimacing through the pain, he shouted commands, re-establishing order and battle lines before the enemy could take advantage of their weakness.
Only once this was done did Irithiel spare any thought for the cause of the disruption. It had been so sudden, so brutal, that he hadn't been able to make any sense of it. He considered calling Elythrea. The Farseer was close by, acting as leader to the Warlock Conclaves who were attached to the Mian-Tor warriors. But her sight was completely blocked by the Anchor and the powers warring for control of it, and besides, he doubted she was in any state to answer his questions : as a Farseer, she would have been affected much worse than him.
Instead, he raised the bridge of the Promise of Lileath :
"Report," he ordered. "What in Isha's name just happened !?"
"Lord Autarch !" The voice of the bridge officer was a mix of relief at hearing her commander's voice and shock. "We are seeing strange fluctuations in the energy levels of the Anchor of Vaul, and space-time anomalies are multiplying in the system. The cage of the Riaway Noara is straining !"
Irithiel's blood turned to ice in his veins. Were they too late ?
"New contacts are slipping in and out of the dimensional oubliette," continued the officer, seemingly confirming the Autarch's worst fears. Her next words, however, filled him with hope : "We are getting readings … by the stars, Autarch ! Those are Aeldari ships !"
Time didn't move, until it did.
Exultant Fleetmaster Abirkiel of the Great House Finnbalae, Seventeenth Prince of the Abalyast Territories, blinked in surprise as he realized this. Like every Aeldari of the armada mustered to draw the Riaway Noara into the cage the smiths of Vaul had constructed, he had fully expected for his existence to end forever as the jaws of the trap closed in on both his fleet and the mon-keigh's mad creations.
Oh, their allies had sworn they would look for a way to free the fleet without unleashing the Riaway Noara, but neither Abirkiel nor any sailor under his command had expected it to work. The Empire was falling apart – in the old days, the Riaway Noara would never have been allowed to become such a threat.
But the old days were long gone, and it was a miracle the smiths had even been able to build the Anchor in the first place. Abirkiel couldn't speak for his crew, but he at least had volunteered for this duty at least partially because it meant he wouldn't have to witness any more of the depravity of the other so-called Great Houses. Sacrificing his life to seal an abomination like the Riaway Noara was as honorable an ending as could be hoped for, and the nature of that ending would also spare his spirit from returning to the Wheel of Rebirth. Once, that prospect might have horrified him, but with what was taking place on the other side of the Veil, he had actually found it reassuring.
Yet now, however impossible it may seem, he had been freed, and the duties and oaths he had thought were ended resumed their hold over him. First, he needed to know how this liberation had come about.
With his mind merged to his ship, the Eternal Vow, Abirkiel looked at their surroundings. His fleet was there, though several ships were missing that had been there when the Anchor had activated. There was no sign of the Riaway Noara's nightmare-ships, praise Asuryan's mercy. The Anchor of Vaul was still there, with some slight drift from its original position. There were other vessels retreating from it : some resembled Aeldari civilian ships, but the others reminded the Exultant Fleetmaster of the mon-keigh's brutish designs. He frowned, and reached out to the rest of his fleet, the order to pursue and destroy these interlopers from the lesser races already on his lips -
Something was wrong. Abirkiel couldn't feel the extensive psychic network of the Empire anymore. Instead, he felt -
He felt -
What in Asuryan's holy name is that ?!
Hello, Abirkiel, purred an awful voice. I have been waiting for you.
There was a presence there, infesting the place where the Empire had been. It was immense. It was malice incarnate. It was sickeningly familiar and revoltingly attractive. He was terrified of it, yet he had never desired anything more in his entire, aeons-spanning life.
A name rose from the depths of Abirkiel's soul, where dwelled the darkness he had tried to deny by dedicating himself to the service of a decadent Empire. He refused to give it voice, but it boomed into his soul, and across his fleet thousands of Aeldari were not so resilient and screamed it as one :
Slaanesh.
The name burned Abirkiel's soul, made him want to puke and laugh and weep at the same time. He felt his skin burn, felt his eyes bulge inside his skull, his every sensation amplified a hundredfold.
Asuryan, he prayed, save -
Asuryan is dead, Abirkiel. They are all dead. There is only ME.
And you and all your kind are MINE.
The Eldar and Imperial ship-masters watched in horror as thousands of Aeldari – a fraction of what the Imperium would have needed to crew an equivalent fleet, thanks to the wonders of Aeldari technology – were devoured by Slaanesh in a single breath. The Prince of Excess moaned in delight, savouring a delicacy it had been denied for millennia.
The great ships of their fleet, each a marvel of engineering that combined long-lost technologies with the tremendous psychic power of the ancients, cracked open and were turned to slag as Warp-rifts opened inside them by the hundreds. The soulless husks of the Aeldari fell down and melted, new daemons of Slaanesh spawned from their final moments of uncomprehending horror rising in their place.
Gaping maws opened where gun emplacements had stood. Solar sails became blades that cut the void and left it bleeding in their wake. Unblinking eyes opened in the place of crystal observation domes, staring at the galaxy with pupils shaped like Slaanesh's unholy sigil.
The newly-born daemonships began to advance toward the fleets of Order. Driven solely by unholy hungers, there was no formation or plan of attack, but the numbers and daemonic might of the corrupted Aeldari vessels left no doubt as to how a confrontation would end. Within moments, the Imperial and Eldar fleets disengaged from their positions around the Anchor of Vaul, and fled into the void with the daemonships in hot pursuit.
The Mian-Tor Eldars felt the horrific fate of their forebears echo through their souls. Many screamed in shared agony and overwhelming terror, leaving them crippled and vulnerable. The Forsaken Sons redoubled their ambushes, slaying hundreds of the Eldar warriors. And on his helm's display, Autarch Irithiel Arthes saw the doom of the ancestors he had thought might return his people to glory, and tasted the ashes of his dream on his tongue.
The Anchor of Vaul screamed. It was the only way Janus could put it.
Arcs of black lightning danced across the surface of the energy sphere from where Arken's arm penetrated it. Vast spans of nothing flickered in the light around them, openings into dimensions where nothing of this universe could even be dreamt of.
And beyond the walls of the Anchor, the Grey Knight sensed the doom of thousands of Aeldari souls, consumed by the Dark Prince of Chaos within seconds of their liberation from their millennia-long imprisonment.
Despite the immense psychic pressure, Janus hadn't stopped moving. The weight was almost unbearable, but he forced himself to keep running. Arken hadn't won yet – the corrupt Aeldari ships were a threat, yes, but nothing compared to the horrors the Nightmare Fleet would bring about if it were unleashed.
Arken saw him approach, and his eyes widened minutely. Janus saw the calculations behind the Awakened One's gaze, and the moment he realized he wouldn't be able to finish breaking the dimensional oubliette fully open in time. With a scowl, the Chaos Lord tore his arm free of the sphere of energy, his claws glinting with severed sunlight.
Janus' first blow was parried, the Titansword held within one of the claws. He ripped the sword free in a shower of sparks.
"I was hoping to make you realize you had failed before killing you," said Arken. "But I see I will have to settle for watching the light go out from your eyes."
The Titansword gave Janus greater reach than Arken's claws. The Chaos Lord understood this, and sought to move close in to nullify that advantage. As he did so, purple Warp-fire erupted across his black Terminator armor, leaping from him in the form of hungry maws that bit at the wards on Janus' own warplate.
The old Legion files made no mention of Arken possessing any psychic potential. He had been recruited before the Edict of Nikaea had made the recruitment of new psykers more trouble than it was worth (what was the point of training an Aspirant to master his power to avoid killing himself, only for him to be forbidden using that power afterwards ?) but he had received many gifts from his infernal masters. His soul was a maelstrom of power which couldn't be controlled, only restrained or directed as it poured out of the inferno the Dark Gods had ignited inside him.
Usually, Janus fought in silence. But the amount of self-control Arken was exerting was prodigious : one slip, and it would destroy him from within. If Janus could manage to get the Chaos Lord to loose his temper, he might win this battle without striking a single blow with the Titansword.
Over a thousand years of fighting the minions of the Ruinous Powers had taught him that truth was the most efficient way to get under their skin, and so it was truth he employed.
"Your masters have betrayed you," he proclaimed. "Even now, their gifts are killing you."
Unexpectedly, Arken gave a short bark of laughter. "Do you think I don't know this ? My life is a more than acceptable price for your death and the release of the Nightmare Fleet. What kind of warrior would I be if I were not willing to give my life for victory ?"
"A rare one, to fight under the banner of Chaos. And death will be the least of what awaits you."
"It doesn't matter," said Arken, his eyes burning with a different kind of fire than the one lashing out at Janus' armor. "So long as the Imperium burns."
And there, thought Janus, was the monstrous tragedy of Chaos. Before Horus' betrayal, Arken had been a faithful servant of the Imperial Truth, a great warrior dedicated to the Great Crusade's ideals and the protection of Mankind. The Dark Gods had hollowed him, burning away every admirable quality he had once possessed, leaving only those traits that served their ends. That even this much of his past self remained was testament to Arken's strength of will, but this too had been bent to the Dark Gods' purpose.
It was the same with Abaddon, whether the self-proclaimed Warmaster realized it or not. The very willpower that made Ezekyle capable of withstanding the Ruinous Powers' boons without submitting to them was what made him the perfect champion to rally their fractious hosts behind. It was a grotesque paradox, but such was the way of Chaos.
The Grey Knights had failed to kill Abaddon during his Black Crusade. There had been too many fronts, as the Black Legion that had escaped the Black Templars at Cadia scattered across the Segmentum and a hundred daemonic plots needed to be put down. By the time Janus had realized where Abaddon had gone, he had already returned to the Eye of Terror, Drach'nyen in hand.
But Arken wouldn't escape, nor would he succeed. The galaxy couldn't survive another such tyrant.
No matter the cost, Janus would see the Awakened One dead.
Despite the utter agony that permeated his flesh and his soul, Arken was exultant as he battled Janus. This was the culmination of his Black Crusade, what all the preparations and sacrifices he had made had led toward. Worlds had burned, armies had been spent, his greatest generals and companions had been sent to draw away the strength of the Grey Knights.
It galled him that even now, in spite of all of this, it might yet come to naught if he fell here. He used the anger that thought caused, channelling it to strengthen his will against the unceasing onslaught of Warp-born power raging through him.
With Al-Zarak dead and Merchurion lost, he couldn't link with the Lamentation aboard the Eidolon of Regret. But he didn't care. Right now, all that mattered was killing Janus – everything else was secondary. He could only pursue one objective; trying to accomplish both at the same time would result in him failing at both.
The Chaos Lord and the Supreme Grand Master battled on the platform of black metal, surrounded by the tormented light of the Anchor of Vaul. They moved back and forth, the air around them crackling with sorcerous energy. They were each masters of their chosen weapons, veterans of centuries of brutal fighting against the horrors of the Warp – Janus across the Imperium, Arken in the Wailing Storm – and they were equally matched.
Janus had thought to distract him with unwelcome truths, foolishly believing Arken was just another blind puppet of the Ruinous Powers, where the Awakened One had gone into his bargain with open eyes. But that didn't mean the tactic didn't have merit, and Arken had words for the Supreme Grand Master far more devastating than his own petty 'revelations'.
"Let me tell you something, Janus," he began, speaking over the clashing of their blades. "You and your Chapter think you need to hide yourself from the gaze of the Dark Gods, believing that knowledge of you will give them an advantage and make you unable to perform the duty the Corpse-Emperor entrusted to you. You've done terrible things to preserve your secrets, haven't you ? Not taking into account all those you killed whose only sin was glimpsing the truths you've deemed Humanity must be kept ignorant from, as if keeping the existence of Chaos would somehow make it all go away."
The very concept was ridiculous. The False Emperor had already tried it during the Great Crusade, and it hadn't worked then either. If anything, ignorance made it easier for the seeds of heresy to take root. The Inquisition seemed to believe that if they killed enough of their own people, they could keep the rest under control – which would work … for a time. Sooner or later, the very cruelty of the Imperium would cause it to fall apart, and on that day, the Dark Gods' laughter would echo across the galaxy.
But that inevitable truth wasn't the chisel Arken intended to chip at Janus' resolve with. He had another approach in mind, from his discussion with Abaddon aboard the Hand of Ruin, years ago.
"And it is all for nothing," he forcefully declared. "The Warp already knows everything about you, Janus. We know everything about you. We have known for centuries ! Since the first time Abaddon led his Black Legion out of the Eye of Terror and pried off his destiny from the hands of the Dark Gods' guardians."
"You sent your brothers to kill his Sorcerer, Iskandar Khayon, do you remember ? And they failed. This you know, but what you didn't know is that, as they laid on the ground before him, broken and bleeding, he ripped out their secrets from their minds ! All your rites, all your precious catechisms. The location of your stronghold – Titan, the moon of Saturn. Where you weapons come from – Deimos, stolen from Mars and hidden away."
"We know about the Augurium, the Chambers of Purity, the Dead Fields and the Hall of Champion. We know about the Gatherers, stealing millions of children and condemning them to death so that one in a million might join your ranks. We know about the forbidden tomes of the Librarium Daemonica, the tesseract prisons of the Vault of Labyrinths. We know about Broadsword Station, about your eight Brotherhoods and their specialities.
"We. Know. You. All the cities wiped out, all the loyal armies who fought alongside you and remained free of the taint only for you to gun them down, all the Space Marines whose memories you took, depriving them of experience that might make all the difference in later campaigns … it is all for nothing. Now and forever, the Dark Gods laugh at you, for you were the greatest weapon in the Anathema's hands, and have managed to forge defeat from even your greatest victories."
"You," replied Janus in a growl, "know nothing."
"I know enough to know that you have already failed. But fret not, Janus. Your journey is about to end."
It was all about symbols, in the end. He had learned that in the Wailing Storm, listening to the whispers of Serixithar and then those of the Gods themselves, without the need for the Oracle's intercession. The tides of the Warp were shaped by the Materium and shaped it in turn, and within the Realms of Chaos symbolism and metaphors were the same as power.
Janus had come to the Anchor of Vaul as the symbol of the Imperium's dominion, and Arken's words had challenged that dominion's righteousness, which the Imperial Creed wielded like a hammer to crush all thoughts of dissent and rebellion within its ranks. And Janus' response, the accusation of ignorance, was something countless petty tyrants had used as justification for their own atrocities throughout the ages of Humanity. It didn't matter that it was true this time : that was the opening he needed to finish this.
… Or perhaps Arken was just finally going crazy, and attributing meaning to the random shifting of the Empyrean like a child seeing shapes in the clouds or a madman seeing signs of conspiracy in the bloody politics of a hive-world. It was certainly possible, and in that case, Arken could very well have doomed his entire warband for nothing. But as long as he killed Janus, Arken didn't care.
"To Khorne," he began as he and Janus continued to clash, their blades cutting through armor but failing to draw blood, "I dedicate the slaughter of the billions who perished across Azarok, and the blood of those who fight beneath us now. To Slaanesh, I return the souls of the Aeldari who escaped their doom by being trapped alongside the Nightmare Fleet. To Nurgle, I bring the despair of shining souls, as they realize their dreams of empire are but dust, and all that remains is a slow descent into corruption and weakness, until entropy inevitably claims all. And to Tzeentch, I offer this : the last chance of redemption for Magnus the Red, snuffed out forevermore !"
The power the Dark Gods had bestowed upon him swelled with his words, the Pantheon recognizing the worth of his offerings and responding in kind. Here and now, he could kill Janus and deprive the Imperium of one of its most potent weapons in the Long War. Fresh armies could be raised, new ships could be built, and even worlds could be replaced – even a million worlds were but a tiny fraction of the galaxy's planets. But no other Supreme Grand Master would ever be Janus' equal.
For as his perceptions expanded in time with his might, Arken could see the power within Janus. He could see it changing the warrior beyond the transformation he had already undergone. He could see the awful thing that waited at the end of that path.
It would be a mercy, he thought, to spare Janus from that fate.
The Titansword and the Chaos-infused claws struck together. The ancient, Emperor-blessed blade cut through shields of Warp energy, armor, flesh and bone, severing Arken's right arm at the shoulder. At the same time, the five scythe-like blades of his left hand plunged through Janus' chest and burst out of his back with enough strength to briefly lift him off his feet.
"I win," whispered Arken, before headbutting Janus, breaking his nose and throwing him off his bloodied claws. The Supreme Grand Master landed on his back, blood pouring out of his torso, while the flow of Arken's own vitae was already stopped, the stump of his right arm cauterized by the Warp-fire coiling across his body.
Shifting his posture to account for the change in balance caused by his lost limb, Arken advanced on his downed foe, wary of the sword the Grey Knight still held in his right hand. It was time to finish this, but despite his earlier words, the Awakened One was aware this could still end in failure. Janus was much more than another loyalist culled from the Legions by Malcador during the Heresy. He was, as the Dark Gods had revealed to him, a creation of the Sigillite using the soul-shard of the Crimson King the Thousand Sons had joined the Siege of Terra in hope of reclaiming, not knowing it was already gone.
The silver soul who blazed with Anathema light was wounded and losing. If it perished, the tainted fire it fought against would unmake the purpose entirely.
The Anchor couldn't intervene. Its influence within the command room was even lesser than within the rest of itself. But even so, it was not without options. It reached within itself, watching the souls who had come to oppose the enemies of its purpose through senses that had no equivalent in the realm of flesh. Its influence within the control room was limited, but there was one protocol it could use, meant to bring its commander directly into position, just in case the target had found out about its existence and launched a surprise attack.
One soul. But who ? There were so many, and none of them matched the strength of the one who was dying. In the end, it selected the oldest soul, the one who had lived longest of them all. Among its creators, age had been a measure of strength and skill, and if power wasn't enough perhaps skill would be. It was a gamble, but it was the one path down which it couldn't predict the failure of its purpose with a one hundred percent certainty.
It snatched that soul out of the fight it was a part of, and brought it directly in the command chamber, right in front of the console the intruders had torn open.
Inquisitor Alphon blinked as the light of alien teleportation faded from his sight. One moment he had been fighting a Forsaken Son whose dedication to the Blood God had made him willing to charge the one group in the Anchor who had Grey Knights among it, the next he was here, wherever here was.
He looked around, and part of him immediately wished he hadn't. Janus was there, bleeding and on the ground. Arken was there too, and judging by their surroundings, they were near the top of the Anchor of Vaul, in whatever served as its control chamber.
Alphon was also standing directly between Janus and Arken. The Chaos Lord was stunned by his sudden arrival, his gaze wary and darting around, as if he expected more warriors to teleport in. Truth be told, Alphon would've been fine with that – he could certainly use the aid of a Grey Knight or twelve right now. But whatever arcane mechanism had delivered him here, it apparently couldn't or wouldn't bring anyone else.
"Who are you ?" asked Arken.
"I am Inquisitor Alphon," he replied. "And though I know not how I came here, the why, I believe is obvious to us all."
Arken laughed, the sound dark and rich with mockery.
"I suppose so. The Anchor fights to the last, it seems. And what do you think you can accomplish, mortal, where even a son of the Emperor has failed, however mutilated his soul ?"
Alphon thought back to the words he and Tarek had exchanged in silence aboard Cardinal Station. Tarek had told him back then that the hour was coming where his secrets would be revealed. Had the tormented soul already known how this would unfold ? Perhaps, perhaps not. In the end, it mattered not. There was only one course of action opened to him.
"I am no mere mortal," he declared. "I am Alphon, son of Earth. I bore witness to the Age of Reason, and the sins that led to its collapse in fire and death of such scale as to make your gene-sire's petty rebellion pale in comparison. I have seen the true face of the Dark Gods you serve and spat in their eye. I have been many things, but now and always, I fight to protect Humanity from the monsters in the dark."
Silence followed his declaration. With every word, Alphon had felt himself grow lighter, as if by casting aside the masks he had hidden behind for so long he had also freed himself from a more physical burden.
"Perpetual," the Chaos Lord spat out the ancient, all-but-forgotten word like a curse.
Alphon nodded, more than a bit surprised but letting none of it show on his face.
"I see your masters have told you many of the galaxy's secrets, traitor."
"I didn't believe that one was real when they told me," admitted the Chaos Lord. "For humans to be gifted immortality, seemingly at random ? It beggars belief. And yet, what does it matter ? Your kind have long since become irrelevant to the Great Game. The very Inquisition you serve would burn you at the stake as a heretic if they suspected your nature. The last few of you who haven't been hunted down cower in the shadows of history, knowing full well that the galaxy has left you behind. Do you really think you can interfere with what will happen here this day ?"
All that Arken had said was true. In his long life, Alphon had only ever met a handful of his peers, and he had outlived them all. Nothing truly lived forever, and death couldn't be denied indefinitely. Alphon knew, though he couldn't explain how, that his own form of immortality was a limited one : he didn't age, and could heal from even the most grievous wound given enough time, but unlike others, he wouldn't be able to return from death once it finally claimed him. There were gradients in the abilities of the Perpetuals, and Alphon's had always been on the lower end. It was why he had stayed out of the Heresy, not joined the fabled Cabal or taken part in any of the galaxy-wide schemes so many of his peers had gotten involved with.
Instead, he had focused on helping people, protecting them from the techno-horrors of the Cybernetic Revolt, then the depredations of the Age of Strife. He had always focused on the small steps, knowing that only at that level did things stay clear-cut. Joining the Inquisition had been a difficult decision, and one that, in the end, had brought him here, where his chances of survival were slim to say the least.
But so what ?
"I think," said Alphon, who had once been a soldier of the Great Terran Federation, raising his blade and pistol with a vicious smile on his lips, "that I would very much like to find out."
AN : The Black Legion knowing about the Grey Knights is actually canon, from the short story A Flash of Silver Among the Corroded Ghosts, from the limited edition Black Legion book. So yeah, the Grey Knights keeping their existence a secret from everyone makes even less sense to me now. I can understand the reasoning of wanting to keep the existence of daemons a secret - if people know they are real, then some moron will, inevitably, try to use them for his advantage. But keeping the Chapter a secret ? That ... sounds a lot like unnecessary grimdark to me (also known, I believe, as "grimderp").
Initially, I had planned for Alphon to be a Sensei : a son of the Emperor, born naturally and blessed with immortal life - but not resurrection. However, while writing it, I realized the Senseis have clearly been quietly written out of canon, with the Perpetuals taking their place, so I changed it.
The next update will be the last. It will be composed of the final chapter and the epilogue. Hopefully I can get it finished before Christmas, but in case I don't, happy Holidays, everybody.
Zahariel out.